Lecture 1. Highlights
Lecture I, full text. PDF
- Unix®
- a portable, multi-user, multi-tasking, free operating system
with a huge contributing community behind it
- The Unix® philosophy
- programs that do one thing and do it well
- programs that work together
- programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface
- Why learn UNIX?
- "It will make you a better computer scientist"
- "It is a building block for learning other CS concepts"
- "It is open source and stable."
- "You have full control, it is not a black box"
- "No viruses, worms and other nasty things"
- "Superior applications in many areas (e.g. word processing such as LaTex )"
About CS 2204
Flavours of UNIX
Architecture of UNIX systems
- kernel - does low-level functions, controls
hardware.
- shell - accepts user commands and executes
them.
- application programs and utilities - the highest
level at which users interact with UNIX.
- In cs2204, we will primarily cover application
programs and the use of the shell. A very important example:
VIM (VI) - an all-purpose text editor. (To bore deeper into
UNIX programming, you should take a course such as cs3204 ).